DVD REVIEWS
THE GRAND SEDUCTION
(out of four)
The inhabitants of Tickle Head, N.L., may be every bit as sneaky as their Québécois counterparts were in the 2003 hit Seducing Dr. Lewis, but there’s no stealth about The Grand Seduction’s real desire. Director Don McKellar ( Last Night) is out to charm English-language audiences with a paint-bynumbers comedy remake, about a hard-times town desperate to woo a sawbones needed to attract a factory and jobs. It’s the movie equivalent of a warm blanket. The film succeeds for the most part, benefiting more from excellent casting — chiefly Brendan Gleeson, Gordon Pinsent and Mary Walsh — than from anything remotely to do with novelty or urgency. The devastation to one-industry locales like Tickle Head wrought by changing times and technology is even more worrisome today than it was more than a decade ago, but McKellar and The Grand Seduction aren’t trying to make the situation any more grim than it needs to be. They’re just out to grab a few grins, and with a goal this modest, not much seduction is required. Peter Howell
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS
K (out of four)
The Fault in Our Stars is adapted from John Green’s bestselling young adult novel about teens finding love in the time of cancer and no hanky box will be left unplundered. The heartless and cynical need not apply. Shailene Woodley’s self-referential Hazel is a whip-smart 16-yearold who has managed to hold lung cancer at bay thanks to an experimental drug, but permanent breathing tubes and a portable oxygen tank remind her of the disease’s constant threat.
She meets the slightly strange but impossibly cute Gus (Ansel Elgort), a basketball star who lost a leg to cancer, and who pretends to smoke cigarettes as his way of giving the finger to the big C and “oblivion.”
Everything turns completely to treacle, replete with heart-tugging visuals and a soundtrack of insipid pop that might have been written and sung by a basketful of angels and bunny rabbits.
But Woodley really proves her worth. She has dramatic chops that she’ll put to good use in a better movie.
Extras include an extended cut, deleted scenes, audio commentary and a making-of featurette. P.H.